by contributor Donna Shor
Photo credit: Courtesy of Equinox
Great Food and Wines Greet the Longest Night.
Equinox restaurant celebrated the Winter Solstice with a special dinner honoring this once-a-year event when Planet Earth’s alignment with the sun brings the shortest day and longest night of the year.
“It was our 13th annual celebration of the Winter Solstice,” said Ellen Kassoff Gray, co-owner of the Connecticut Avenue restaurant with her husband, multiple award-winning chef Todd Gray. Ellen considers the “longest night” all the more reason to celebrate, saying it’s a time when indulgence is encouraged without the guilt.
She urged guests to “free your inhibitions, warm yourself at the fireplace and party the longest night away.” Happy diners were glad to do just that, enjoying the superb wines of RdV Vineyards, the music of The Walkaways and the parade of delights that kept issuing from the kitchen.
Consider these beginnings: Crab Beignets with Caper Rémoulade, Crispy Duck Spring Rolls with Napa Cabbage, tender 24-Hour Brisket on rounds of Silver Dollar Brioche and Rare Tuna enhanced by Nori chips, cucumber and radish slivers.
Then things got serious with three outstanding dishes: a Smoked Apple Chestnut Soup, its deep flavor stepped up by grilled trumpet mushrooms, and a celery root gremolata. (Todd Gray’s personal take on the Italian garnish. He’s trained in classic Italian cuisine and you have to know, as he does, the traditional gremolata before you can do creditable variations on the theme. That is one of Gray’s perceptive gifts, his ability to surprise and please a diner with a knowledgeable variation on the usual.)
Next the Agnolotti was a truly satisfying dish: light-as-air pasta stuffed with homemade ricotta, blessed by truffle butter and heightened with a mirepoix of winter squash. A great favorite was the meltingly tender Pancetta Wrapped Cervina Venison with parsnip-leek puree and pear-shallot essence. The medallions sliced from the venison tenderloin were miracles of flavor, the pork wrapping adding richness and depth.
Dessert time brought Apple Cider Beignets and rich, rich Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars but the diners met the challenge and were even more pleased when, in an unexpected burst of lagniappe, a sinfully good Bûche de Noël arrived unannounced, to be sliced by executive chef Karen Nicolas.
This Yule Log cake was a classic, the bûche–or log––imitated a fireplace-ready log with “bark” simulated by drawing fork times through chocolate icing, plus a luscious filling inside the cake roll.
The RdV wines were a revelation; at the first sniff and sip, I thought I was back in Bordeaux, in the Médoc chateau where I spent four good years enjoying some of the greatest wines in the world. To discover that these fine bottles with the authentic elegant and austere finish of a Bordeaux were being made almost in my own back yard was like being given a gift, a rather pricey gift for Virginia wines, but worth it.
At the winery the Rendezvous and the Lost Mountain bottlings sell for $77 and $88 dollars respectively, but here they were included in the Equinox dinner price. The crowd knew what they were being so generously served and throughout the evening these vibrant wines flowed like–er–wine.
Thomas Jefferson would have been envious. Back home in Virginia from his visits to Bordeaux, our Francophile 3rd president struggled to duplicate the great wines he had tasted there. He failed.
The European vine cuttings he had brought back were hampered by vine pests, the soil was wrong and Virginia’s higher temperatures and too-abundant rainfall led to vegetative growth that denied the grapes their due, lessening the wines.
Jefferson was a maverick in his quest, and 200 years later Rutger de Vink, whose vineyards produced these outstanding RdV wines, is also a maverick, but one who is succeeding, thanks to his sense of that history and his meticulous preparation.
A big, ruggedly handsome outdoors man, 40-year-old de Vink moved to the States with his family from the Netherlands when he was 15. A former Marine who served in Somalia, Rutger earned his MBA at Northwestern’s Kellogg Business School, and worked four years in technology before shucking his coat and tie to become a hands-on wine grower with eyes firmly affixed on “Quality” as his goal.
Rutger paid his dues, working for his friend and mentor Jim Law of Virginia’s highly regarded Linden Vineyards, then traveling to Bordeaux where he acquired friendships in the wine world. From 2005-2007 he brought in the vintages at classified growth’s Chateau Cheval Blanc in St. Émilion, and Chateau LaGrange in the Médoc, absorbing the details of the Bordeaux traditional vinification methods.
Seeking a vineyard site, he criss-crossed Northern Virginia until he found, only an hour or so from Washington, a rocky mountain top overlooking the Blue Ridge, with the soil he sought. Locals scoffed at the rock garden, but Rutger knew the influence of the terroir complex on the character of the wine. And this gravelly, granite acreage would provide drainage for the vines, to counteract excessive rainfall. On his 16 acres he planted Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc.
He sought help– from investors, who were mainly his relatives, he sought money–and from noted viticulturalists, knowledge. Even the renowned oenologist Eric Boissenot, having tasted an early RdV bottle, volunteered his services.
His achievement has been dazzling. His wines express the character of Cabernet Sauvignon at its highest, well-balanced, with bright fruit, typical black currant overtones and good oak with tannins already smoothing out, but with enough presence to insure a long life. There was an excellent long farewell in both bottlings, with the Lost Mountain slightly more impressive.
Both men whose efforts inspired the evening are achieving the goals they set themselves: Todd to create a setting where he could expand his talent in using the bounty of the mid-Atlantic coast to produce great dishes, and Rutger to produce noteworthy wines in a region that is not conducive to the grape he has chosen.
Both will continue to strive, because that is their nature, and the rest of us will continue to benefit..
